It is common practice to manufacture electrical harnesses with conductor cable or ribbon cable, as it is sometimes called, which comprises a plurality of side-by-side, parallel, spaced-apart conductors contained in a ribbon of insulating material. Flat conductor cable has several advantages as compared with discrete wire cables such as the fact that each conductor occupies a predetermined position in the cable with reference to the other conductors and a specific conductor can be identified at any position along the length of the cable. A further advantageous feature of flat conductor cable is that electrical connections can be made to all of the conductors in a cable by simply installing a multicontact electrical connector having terminals therein which are spaced apart by the same distances as the conductors in the cable. The terminals of such connectors are usually of the insulation displacement type and the installation of the connector on the cable merely requires that the connector be placed in alignment with the cable and the cable pushed against the terminals in the connector. A wide variety of connectors are available for the many types and sizes of flat conductor cable available.
Flat conductor cable has, however, several shortcomings as compared with discrete wires and discrete wires also have comparative advantages which are not realized when flat cables are used rather than discrete wires in a harness manufacturing operation. For example, the cost of flat conductor cable is almost always significantly greater than the cost of a cable having a comparable number of discrete wire conductors therein. A further comparative disadvantage is that flat conductor cables are available from cable manufacturers only in specific sizes and wire gauges and if a manufacturer of harnesses wishes to produce a cable having a number of conductors therein which is more or less than the conductors available in a standard cable, he is required to use a cable containing conductors beyond the number he requires for the harness. This is an undesirable expedient for the reasons that it is wasteful and it is not desirable to have surplus conductors in the harness which might cause confusion to a technician making repairs to the equipment on which the harness is used. Also, it is sometimes required that a harness have one or two conductors therein which are of a wire gauge which is greater than the gauge of the remaining wires in the conductor and standard off-the-shelf flat cables are generally not available with different sizes or gauges of conductors in the cable. A further comparative shortcoming of flat conductor cable is that it is impractical to form branches or "break outs" in the harness which may be required when some of the conductors in the cable must go to a first connector and the remaining conductors must go to a second connector at a location remote from the first connector. It is generally not advisable to try to slit flat conductor cable between adjacent conductors for the reason that the insulation may be damaged and the electrical integrity of the cable thereby compromised.
The present invention is directed to the achievement of a wire holder or wire fixture for discrete wires which confers on discrete wire cables and harnesses, many of the advantages of flat conductor cable without sacrifice of the particular advantages of discrete wires. The invention is further directed to the achievement of electrical harnesses having discrete wires therein which have the advantages of harnesses composed of flat conductor cable.